She’s strong-willed and spunky, but she’s left picking up the pieces from her ex’s lies and
manipulations, and daydreaming about taking a scalpel to his scrotum.

Flying under the radar is what he does best.

He’s laid-back and loyal, but he wants the most off-limits woman in his world, and nothing will ever make that a reality.

An arrangement of mutual benefit.

Two months, four dates.

Five, if things go well.

Five at the most.

But possibly six.

Definitely no more than six dates.

Only the appearance of a romantic relationship is required, and they expect nothing more from their time together. There will be none of those benefits involved.

One wild weekend.

After waking up in bed together—very naked and even more hungover—the terms and conditions of their arrangement no longer apply. Now they’re faced with something riskier than exposing their fake relationship: letting go of the past and zipping up the future.

He shook his head and ate another pretzel. “I don’t want to live in a world where a few almonds—chocolate or otherwise—are lunch.” He pointed to the plate and pushed his beer toward me. “Eat. Drink. Please.”

I glared at the pilsner and pretzels. I hated being told what to do. Just fucking hated it. But then my stomach growled—goddamn it—and Riley shot me a pointed glance.

“People think that a rumbling stomach is the sign of hunger,” I said, reaching for his glass. I drained the beer and then selected a pretzel for dipping. “It is not.”

Riley gazed at me, his expression flat. It gave me a moment to study him while choosing another pretzel. He was wearing jeans, a tailored shirt with the cuffs rolled up to his elbows, and a pinstriped vest, and his hair was a wreck. It looked like he’d been tugging the dark strands in every conceivable direction. His eyes were rimmed with a bit of red and his lids heavy, as if he’d been rubbing them or hadn’t gotten much sleep. Perhaps both. There was a small notebook beside his phone, and a mechanical pencil tucked into the spiral binding.

And he was still more attractive than I knew how to handle. Even tired and irritable, and ordering me to eat his pretzels and drink his beer, he was hot as fuck. I bit into another pretzel and offered him a small smile.

“Would you say the chip on your shoulder is massive or epic?” he asked. There was no hint of amusement in his tone, and he was staring at me with more ice than I’d believed he could muster. It didn’t feel like we were sniping at each other anymore. “It might be semantics to you but I’m trying to get a feel for what I’m dealing with here.”

But then one of his big hands found my leg under the table. He squeezed and rubbed his thumb along the hollow of my knee, and I started to believe I’d been all wrong about this man. There was the player and there was the overgrown kid, but there was so much more than that.

Start The Walshes series for FREE!!!!!!!

One hot architect. One naughty schoolteacher. One crazy night that changes everything.

If I had known I’d have a hot architect balls deep inside of me before the end of the weekend, I’d have made time for a pedicure. Also, a little chat about not losing my shit at all the wrong moments.
Hindsight was a bitch, and karma…well, I didn’t know her story yet.

Meet Lauren Halsted.
It’s all the little things—the action plans, the long-kept promises—that started falling apart when my life slipped into controlled chaos.

After I fell ass-over-elbow into Matthew Walsh’s arms.

I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to run screaming or rip his pants off, and most days I wanted a little of both. If I was being honest with myself, it was rip his pants off, ride him like a workhorse, and then run screaming.

Meet Matthew Walsh.
A rebellious streak ran through Lauren Halsted. It was fierce and unrelentingly beautiful, and woven through too many good girl layers to count, and she wasn’t letting anyone tell her what to do.

Unless, of course, she was naked.

She wasn’t looking for me and I sure as shit wasn’t looking for her, but we found each other anyway and now we were locked in a battle of wills, waiting for the other to blink.

Sometimes the universe conspires to bring people together. Other times, it throws them down a flight of stairs and leaves them in a bruised and bloodied heap.

Kate Canterbary doesn’t have it all figured out, but this is what she knows for sure: spicy-ass salsa and tequila solve most problems, living on the ocean–Pacific or Atlantic–is the closest place to perfection, and writing smart, smutty stories is a better than any amount of chocolate. She started out reporting for an indie arts and entertainment newspaper back when people still read newspapers, and she has been writing and surreptitiously interviewing people—be careful sitting down next to her on an airplane—ever since. Kate lives on the water in New England with Mr. Canterbary and the Little Baby Canterbary, and when she isn’t writing sexy architects, she’s scheduling her days around the region’s best food trucks.